The Cinderella Rules Read online

  He motioned to the door. “Please leave your proposal with Mr. Cuthbert on your way out. Thank you for your time.”

  The woman stood there a moment longer, but Shane’s gaze didn’t waver and she apparently thought better of trying to plead her case any further. Smart shark. As the door closed behind the duo, he sat back down again, sighed, and massaged the now-permanent throb in his forehead. God, he wanted to get the hell out of there. He looked at the towering stack of folders in front of him, each representing yet another meeting on his docket. And that was just for today.

  He hadn’t had a moment to call his own since he’d left word with Alexandra’s corporate attorneys after checking into the Embassy Grand on Sunday. He’d opted not to go home after leaving Glass Slipper—mostly because any generic hotel room would be more welcoming—figuring he’d meet with the lawyers, sign a few papers, and resign what could only be a figurehead position at best. He wasn’t interested in selling anything, or making any money off the whole ordeal. It wasn’t his to take, even if he had wanted it, which he didn’t. As far as he was concerned, whatever profit there was to be made, belonged to those who had, knowing his grandmother, sweat blood to make it in the first place.

  That done, he’d planned to head out to Four Stones the following week. He also had to go over all the family and various nonbusiness holdings, but he’d optimistically thought he could wind things up in a few days, and be on the first flight to . . . wherever it possessed him to go.

  Rarely had he ever been so wrong. He’d been correct in assuming that Alexandra hadn’t built Morgan Industries into a global megalopolis by leaving things to others and hoping all went well. Oh, no, she’d made sure every last detail was overseen by a phalanx of personal assistants, each of whom reported to her every other damn minute, each of whom knew the only answer to the command “jump” as an obedient “how high?”

  It was just that all of them, very resentfully, now jumped for him. And only him. Shane sifted through the folders, absently wondering if, should he tell them all to head up to the top floor and jump off the roof, they would do so. Sure would make things a hell of a lot easier.

  It was now Wednesday. He’d slept a total of nine hours since his first meeting Sunday night, which he’d been hard-pressed to avoid, as a raft of lawyers had shown up on his hotel-room doorstep within the hour of his phone call. Naively thinking that a jump-start on things might speed up his departure, he’d let them in.

  His first in a long string of misjudgments. His eyes had crossed long before that first meeting was over. The bottom line was that, while Alexandra had a slew of pawns overseeing various independent elements of the business, there was no single individual geared to step into the top slot. Her lawyers had made it quite clear that what Frank and Steve had said was, in fact, quite true. She’d made it clear that a Morgan would always control Morgan Industries. Great way to make friends and influence the people whose lives he now controlled. They all resented the hell out of him and, frankly, he couldn’t blame them.

  She’d also tied him up in her innumerable assets, not the least of which was the family manse in Great Falls, along with various properties that had been in the Morgan family since right around the same time Washington had crossed the Potomac. He supposed Alexandra had thought that if she tangled him in her web tightly enough, he’d be smart enough not to struggle.

  Well, Big Al had once again underestimated the last Morgan. It might take longer than a few days to sort it all out, but sort it out and divest of it—every fax machine, company jet, and polo pony of it—he would. He loosened his tie and popped the top button on his dress shirt. Just as soon as he figured out how.

  He should have stuck around Glass Slipper longer. Hell, he should have checked himself in. He’d be having a damn sight more fun, anyway. “Fun,” he said a bit wistfully, “now there’s a concept.”

  Shane thought about what he’d been doing when he’d gotten word that a series of strokes had swiftly and shockingly claimed one of the most powerful people in Washington. He’d been pearl-diving in the South Pacific, where he’d been living for the past six months. The pay wasn’t great, pretty much nonexistent as a matter-of-fact, but the locals were some of the happiest people he’d ever met. The food was basic but plentiful, and the location was truly paradise.

  Big Al would never understand that kind of happiness, or that it could be so fulfilling. Of course, who the hell was he to tell anyone that the Holy Grail they endlessly chased after was nothing more than a worthless trinket? Just because he didn’t down antacids like Tic Tacs, worship Xanax like it was a new religion, or think nothing of having a shrink on retainer, to keep the competitive edge sharp, didn’t mean he was better equipped to measure true happiness than the next guy.

  His gaze traveled to the bank of phones situated on the corner of Alexandra’s mahogany desk. He thought about the last time he’d been truly happy. It had been in the backseat of a limo, what felt like an eternity ago. He wondered how Darby was holding up.

  It was ridiculous, really. He was drowning here . . . and he hadn’t even broached the personal stuff yet. The mansion, its phalanx of employees, the other various and sundry accumulated bullshit. Cars, boats, a hockey team. But his eyes stayed on the phone. And the person he most wanted to talk to had nothing to do with solving any of his problems. Nor did she have anything to do with pearl-diving in Pulau, being a rodeo clown in Texas, guiding rafting tours in Patagonia, or giving ski instruction to the snow bunnies of the Austrian Alps. Or any of the other jobs he’d had, that he’d give his arm to be back doing again right at that moment. And yet, now that he’d allowed himself a spare second to think about her . . . he couldn’t seem to stop. Or didn’t want to, anyway.

  His smile spread to a grin. Right about now, she was probably ready to let Daddy cut her sister off without a cent. Interesting, he mused, how her rugged, take-no-shit exterior hid a pretty damn marshmallowy center. At least where her kid sister was concerned.

  She was leaving Glass Slipper tomorrow, then picking up her Scandinavian guest, to begin her three-day whirlwind tour of the Washington social scene. A scene he could easily find a way to be part of if he wished to. Well, he wished to, he decided. He wanted to see her again. Of course, she might not have given him a single thought since she’d been swept into Glass Slipper. His fingers hovered over the now-buzzing intercom, signaling that his next appointment had arrived.

  He yanked up the phone instead, imagining the pinched look on Linus Cuthbert’s face when Shane didn’t answer his latest summons. Alexandra’s executive assistant could have given Torquemada a few bad nights, but Shane was immune to his little power trips. He smiled with sincerity for the first time that day . . . and yanked the intercom cord out of the wall. Then he punched the button for the operator. “Get me Glass Slipper, Incorporated, please. Mercedes Browning—wait, no, Vivian dePalma.” He paused while the young lady repeated his request. “Yes, that’s right. Also, contact accounting.” He flipped open a folder. “Have Sheldon Werner call my assistant and set up a meeting for tomorrow. Thanks.” Before he made his decision on Celentrex, he wanted to know just how many jobs were going to be affected—one way or the other—and what kind of blow it would deliver to the company if someone else snagged the deal out from under him.

  He looked upward, then rethought that and looked downward. “Thanks, Big A. You’ve done the impossible. I’m not only wearing a suit, putting in twenty-hour days, but I’m worrying about revenue velocity and upsetting the manpower infrastructure.” He sighed. “May God strike me dead.”

  There was a tap on the double doors, then Linus’s weasellike face peered around the corner. With as much disdain as he could muster and still look like he was kissing his boss’s ass, he said, “Mr. Morgan, your next appointment has arrived.” He sniffed. “And there appears to be a malfunction with the intercom system.”

  Ever the little lieutenant, Shane thought. He smiled. “I yanked it out of the wall.”

  Linus
’s mouth went slack, but he quickly regrouped. “But, sir, how will I—”

  “Smoke signals for all I care, man. And cancel the appointment waiting out there. Give them my apologies. Then cancel everything after it for the next couple of hours. I’m heading out for a while.”

  “Out?” Linus actually spluttered.

  “I know it’s going to come as a shock to you, but there is actually a whole world outside these vaunted walls. A world filled with people who smile, and laugh, and don’t give a shit about their job for whole hours at a time. You might want to look into it. Right after you cancel my appointments. Oh, and find out how to open the file drawers in Alexandra’s private office.” He hadn’t gotten around to digging into that yet, but maybe there would be notes, something that would shed more light on this buyout. And God knew what else. He tried not to shudder.

  “It’s a private combination. Only your grandmother knew it.”

  “Then hire a locksmith. I want them open by the time I get back.” Shane’s private line buzzed. Vivian. Thank God. He leaned back in his chair as Linus flounced out. If he was in charge here, then it was time he started acting like it. And his first executive decision was to see Darby Landon. Today.

  She’d been plucked and painted, waxed and lowlighted. Exfoliated, lacquered, and buffed. Roadkill could be stuffed and presentably mounted with less work than had been done on her in the past four days. But she’d discovered that submitting herself to those degradations wasn’t going to be the low point. Oh, no.

  And this was including those idiotic sessions she’d gracefully—or so she’d thought—allowed them to run her through. Things like Intimate Place Settings for Forty, The Ten Worst Finger Food Faux Pas, or Working the Power Party (otherwise known as How to Close the Deal Without Actually Revealing You Have a Brain). Okay, so they’d called them something else, but who cared? It was all an endless wall of white noise to her. How in the hell did Pepper manage to care about all this crap?

  Darby had begun to realize that her younger sister must have been a lot more on the ball than she let on. Anyone who could handle their father and remember all these endless rules had to be either an Oscar-caliber actress or a rocket scientist. Or both. Hell, table-seating alone apparently required the sort of strategic battle intelligence usually reserved for four-star generals.

  And she could have handled that. Or faked it at least. Short-term anyway, for her sister’s sake. Although, in all honesty, it was never going to freaking matter to Darby whether or not the escargot knife should be placed precisely at twelve o’clock. Or was it four o’clock?

  But then the lovely folks at Glass Slipper had gone one step too far. They’d actually had the nerve to expect her to go clothes shopping. Voluntarily. At more than one store.

  Somewhere around store number five her eyes glazed over. By store twelve, her feet, even in her own broken-in cowboy boots, had gone mercifully numb. She’d already tried to bribe Melanie, the dynamo Beverly had assigned to be Darby’s “personal lifestyle consultant,” but Merry Melanie couldn’t be bought. Had she merely pointed to things and said, “Buy this, this, and that,” Darby might have been able to hack it with little more than a snarl and the occasional peevish comment.

  But nooo. She was supposed to put together her own wardrobe. Apparently the theory was that, this way, she’d develop her own fashion sense, her own “look,” with an eye toward what enhanced her features and physique, so that on future shopping trips—that Melanie, such a comedian—she’d be able to zero right in on “her style” of clothing.

  She really didn’t want to tell Melanie that “her style” was usually found in the clothing aisles at Tractor Supply. And not always the women’s section, either. Her “look” said “equine management,” not “upper management.”

  “Lucky us,” Melanie was saying as she led Darby into the women’s department at Nordstrom. “Silks are on sale.”

  “Just kill me now,” Darby muttered beneath her breath as she followed behind, barely resisting the juvenile urge to scuff her heels.

  “You’ll want to keep in mind your previous selections,” Melanie continued, ever chipper and perky despite her protégée’s death-row enthusiasm for the expedition. “That way you can maximize your wardrobe potential by mixing and matching.”

  “Mixing and matching what?” Darby asked, honestly confused. Maybe the piped in Muzak had finally seeped so deeply into her consciousness that she’d slipped over the edge into a catatonic state.

  “Your apparel,” Melanie said, just as perplexed.

  Apparently the poor woman was unaware that, before today, Darby’s wardrobe contained no two items that couldn’t be worn together. Jeans went with everything, right? It was the only fashion rule Darby was certain of. And if she’d been wrong all these years, well, Tugger and the horses hadn’t seemed to mind.

  “As an example,” Melanie said, perking right back up again, in the traditional Glass Slipper manner, “the black pants and jacket you bought this morning would go great with these silk tops.” She led Darby to a rack of shimmering fabric in various jewel-tone colors.

  Those were shirts? “But they’re barely held together by more than a string over the shoulder. That’s not a good investment. No durability.”

  “You’re not going to clean horse stalls in them, Darby,” Melanie said, not unkindly. “I’m sure that with the proper care, this blouse could last for several seasons, at least. Accessorized differently, of course.”

  “Of course.” Darby didn’t make the mistake of questioning her about seasons. She’d already learned that there were women who willingly subjected themselves to this kind of hell, not merely annually, like she did, which was bad enough and done only out of necessity. No, Washington doyennes overhauled their complete wardrobe four times a year. Every year. Because God forbid they show up next year in something they wore once, fourteen months earlier, to an event attended by two-dozen people. She had apparently left too young (or not young enough, depending on how you looked at it), because she didn’t remember her mother ever coming home with a limo full of tissue-paper-lined boxes and glossy bags with little rope handles that were, at times, fancier than what was packed inside. Seemed like a monumental waste to her.

  “I only need to get through the next three days,” Darby muttered. Of course, she could actually clean the barn wearing that blouse if she so desired, then smiled dryly as she imagined Tugger’s expression when she waltzed into the barn wearing jeans, chaps, boots . . . and silk. And maybe the horses would like their feed delivered in little rope-handled bags, too.

  “I know your budget doesn’t extend to couture and some of the name designers, but these will hold up.” Melanie didn’t add the words “under scrutiny,” but they were implied.

  It would soon be no secret that Paul Landon III’s eldest daughter had once again waltzed into town. Fortunately, the focus had been on Pepper during her last visit, so Darby had gratefully kept to the background. She’d flown in early, hit Pepper’s graduation, managed to get a few minutes alone with her in the social whirl that followed, then headed straight back to the airport by nightfall.

  This time would be different. Grossly different. This time she’d be examined, analyzed, discussed, and dissected from head to toe, everywhere she went. If she didn’t behave just the right way, wear just the right things, make the appropriate small talk, why, her father’s reputation could be sullied. Or, heaven forfend, besmirched. Not that Darby gave a flat fu—er, darn.

  She sighed. The not swearing part was going to be the death of her, for sure. And she didn’t care what her father thought of her performance, any more than she cared about the opinions of the uptight, pearl-throated society dragons who had nothing better to do than worry what designer label had been stitched into the butt seam of her dress. Like they weren’t all made by teenage girls in the Honduras or something, anyway. And she gave even less of a damn about the supposed big deal her father was trying to close; a deal that obviously hinged on how th
oroughly his business partner felt his lily-white Scandinavian ass had been kissed after three days of nonstop schmoozing with the Town & Country set.

  Her concerns about her sister’s welfare were beginning to stutter a bit. She had known for some time that Pepper had to start taking more responsibility for herself. Every hour that passed was making it easier and easier to cast her sister adrift on the sea of responsibility. And not having that trust fund life preserver might do her more good than harm.

  She fingered one of the silk shirts. And had to admit it actually felt sort of . . . sexy. She swallowed a snort at the thought of making an actual effort to be sexy. If she tried something like this back home, everyone in Big Bend, population 1,356, would have a field day. She was pretty sure even the horses would roll their eyes.

  Melanie, ever the sharp one, noticed her brief weak moment of femininity and leaped on the slight advantage. She slipped two blouses—one teal, one crimson—from the rack and pushed them in Darby’s hands. “Why don’t you go slip them on. See which is better with your coloring.”

  Darby eyed her suspiciously. “Is this supposed to be a test or something? Because I already had my . . . what do you guys call it?”

  “Seasonal self-reflections analysis?”

  “Right. And I know I’m supposed to wear cooler colors to play down my skin tone when I have a tan, which is pretty much all year. So you might as well leave the red one there.” She slipped an ice-blue one off the rack herself. “I’ll take this one.”

  Melanie beamed. Darby gritted her teeth into a semblance of a smile, fully prepared to smack the woman if she patted any part of her body in approval. She wasn’t a two-year-old being potty-trained, for God’s sake. Although that was exactly how she felt.

  “I’ll wait out here.”

  “You do that,” Darby murmured beneath her breath, privately wishing Melanie would get lost in the shoe department or ladies’ handbags, allowing Darby to escape and go find a park to sit in and contemplate her navel for a couple of hours. At least until the Muzak mind-probe wore off.